With the year’s end quickly approaching, two Leopard student athletes signed national letters of intent to continue their athletic careers in college.

The first athlete to sign their national letter of intent was senior Lauren Helsley. Helsley will be continuing her lacrosse career at Lourdes University in Ohio.

“I will be playing Division II lacrosse for Lourdes in Ohio. It is a very small school with a  fairly new lacrosse program,” Helsley said. “I really loved having some my coaches and teammates at my signing despite our hard loss Tuesday night against ESD. I would also love to thank my parents for being there as well.”

Due to the lack of girls lacrosse team at the high school, Helsley plays select lacrosse in McKinney.

“I will miss my McKinney team a lot, we won the D2 state championship last year and are now 6-2 going into district playoffs in our first year as a D1 program,” Helsley said.

Helsley chose Lourdes over Tiffin University, Adams State University and Hendrix College.

The second Leopard who signed a national letter of intent was senior Brittani Brooks. Brooks will be playing tennis at Tusculum College.

“They have a really good psychology program, which is what I am interested in,” Brooks said. “Their tennis team is really good. They win their conference a lot, which was a big reason I am choosing to go there.”

Along with a strong tennis program, the campus and people associated with the college played a big role in Brooks’s decision to choose Tusculum over the other colleges interested in her.

“The campus is really nice, and I really like the people there,” Brooks said. “The other colleges that I was choosing from was the University of Northern Colorado, Longwood, UTD, and some others.”